


until the lambs have become lions

by notdarthvader



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 12:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14790554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notdarthvader/pseuds/notdarthvader
Summary: In every life, Steve walks a long, somber walk with the promise of death at the end.And at the end, Bucky hangs in his place.





	until the lambs have become lions

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Maitreya’s The Holy Book of Destiny. Taking liberties here for artistic reasons, the poem wasn’t published until well past the 1940s. But uhhh. This is fanfic. So it was now.
> 
> Character study on steve, bucky, and the manifestation of grief and perseverance, and the way they twine together. Fuck infinity war for getting me back on this ship.
> 
> Non-linear, unreliable narrator, as with most of the things I write.

Steve tastes blood in his mouth, hot, copper-bright, and Bucky turns to him, confusion and fear in his eyes.

* * *

 

In a quiet Brooklyn apartment, the echo of lifetimes ago, Steve used to read.

Read by the dying light of the sun in the sticky summer evening, and then late into the night as the streetlights flickered outside.

* * *

 

“Steve?” Bucky asks, a look that Steve can’t place crossing the harsh, handsome lines of his face.

* * *

 

A busted lip, blackened knuckles, a swollen shut eye, and the satisfaction of a scrappy ally fist-fight later, Steve reads as he presses frozen peas to the bruises on his face.

“ _Go out into this world,_ ”, he whispers to himself, as the evening haze settles slick, heated around the streetlamps, against the cobbled roads.

_Bold and unafraid;_

His split-skin knuckles curl tight around the edges of the paper.

* * *

 

_Steve?_

* * *

 

“This is all my fault,” Tony says, abrupt, and sudden, as the two of them watch the news. Devastated is too weak of a word to describe the world in the wake of Thanos’ slaughter. News reports have been running for days on end, grieving parents crying over the loss of their children, broken families echoing the same, terrible refrain of _I don’t even know how it happened, they were there one minute and gone the next_.

“I didn’t anticipate this, I didn’t listen. I should have known there would be something else. There always is. I should have _known_.”

“Tony,” Steve says then, soft as a guillotine, deadly as a whisper. “Don’t. You do this every time. You get caught in the past, stick your head in the sand, and whisper to yourself if only you could have done better. You hyperanalyze where you went wrong, and you are prepared for the same thing, time and time and time again. And you never learn.”

“We could have been there together, we could have stood _together_ if only you hadn’t shoved your head up your ass about your _best friend_ , and torn the Avengers apart!”

“The government was made up almost entirely of Nazis, Tony! What do you want me to say? I was born hating bullies, I was created to fight Nazis, until I woke up a few years ago all I _knew_ was fighting Nazis. And then you ignore the fact that the entire intelligence apparatus we had was almost entirely Nazis, and you wanted us to register for accords that would have stopped us from preventing such a thing from ever happening again?”

“Didn’t you just accuse me of getting stuck in the past, Cap? Or is hypocrisy only a bad thing if it’s me doing it?”

“That’s not what I said, and you damn well know it, Tony,” Steve snaps. Vaguely, he knows he’s breathing heavily, and Tony’s face is warped in a snarl, and they’ve both been yelling but-

Steve looks away. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s not your fault, Tony. It’s none of our faults. Thanos is the only one to blame.”

“We could have stopped him, if only you hadn’t-“

“So is it your fault, Tony? Or is it mine? Make up your damn mind about who you want to blame.”

Tony snaps his mouth shut and glares, muted and furious.

Steve sighs, gesturing helplessly. “This? This, whatever grudge you have against me? It doesn’t matter anymore. None of this matters. Thanos is gone, half the galaxy’s population with him. That’s what we should be focusing on.”

“Easy enough for you to say,” Tony spits, but there’s no venom to it.

“You have Rhodey. You have Pepper. No one you care about except the _child_ you dragged into this died. And I’m sorry for that loss, Tony, I really am. But this isn’t about you. The weight of the galaxy isn’t on you, it’s on Thanos. We’ll figure something out.” Steve breathes out in a rush, and forcibly uncurls his fists. “We’ll figure something out.”

Steve turns and is halfway through shouldering his way out the door when Tony speaks again.

“Cap- Steve. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Falcon. And your… friend.”

Steve closes his eyes. “Thank you, Tony.”

* * *

 

Perhaps, then, this is his burden, his lifelong cross strapped across the broad expanse of his shoulders.

In every life, Steve walks a long, somber walk with the promise of death at the end.

And at the end, Bucky hangs in his place.

* * *

 

“You readin’ again?” Bucky says, slouched on the couch as he is, his shirt’s askew, and one sock is long lost to the greed of the couch cushions. He looks lazy. At ease.

“What else am I supposed to do around here, Buck,” Steve says, shooting him a quick side-eye.

Bucky is quiet for a long time. So long, Steve thinks he maybe fell asleep.

“Read something to me, Stevie,” he says at last. Outside the stars are muted, suffocated in the smog, and the apartment is hushed and quiet.

Steve’s lungs rattle as he breathes in, then out.

He reads.

* * *

 

“All is lost, then,” Thor says, a grief-stricken, choked off laugh tearing from his lungs like a knife ripped from a wound. “Everyone. Every _thing_. Gone. I am a _god_ and against him, I was useless. What hope can any of you all have?”

Steve huffs and looks at his hands.

Thor pauses. “No offense meant. You all are dear to me, it’s just-“

“You’re a god,” Steve says, his voice thick. “And serum or not, I’m just a guy.”

Thor sighs, and scuffs the heel of his boot against the dirt.

“My people are all gone. Half of them are dead. The other half lost across space. My brother, struck down before me. Did you know I killed my sister less than a week ago? I didn’t even know I had a sister. Everything and everyone from my home. Gone.”

Steve breathes. And breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

Grief looks ugly on them all.

“Thor,” he says at last. “I’m sorry for what you’ve lost. Sam’s better at this than- Sam, Sam was better at this than me, but. I know we’re not the closest of friends but. If you need anything, you know I have your six.”

Thor studies him a long moment, the blue grey flicker of his eyes endless, echoing, and hollow. “Thank you, Captain Rogers,” he says at last, serious and soft. “Thank you, Steve.”

Steve nods. Breathes out.

“ _And when the bigots cast stones against you,_ ” Steve murmurs as Thor closes his eyes, pressing his face into the palms of his hands. “ _take every stone they cast, and use them-_ “

* * *

 

Maybe-

Maybe.

In every lifetime, Steve is stuck watching as Bucky slips through his fingers, like ink through water, like grains of sand through time.

Like ash in the warm, Wakandan breeze.

* * *

 

“ _And when they seek to oppress you_ ,” Bucky whispers through chattering teeth.

Bunkered down, miles behind enemy lines, Bucky’s hands are curled around the barrel of his rifle, his lips white, his jacket blue, his eyes like ice.

“’F I were gonna paint you, I’d only have to use three colors right about now.”

“What,” Bucky says, and his voice trembles under the force of the cold. “You can see more than two now?”

Steve thinks of the way Bucky’s hair shines like burnished bronze in the crimson-gold light of the setting sun, and the deep, vibrant red that brings out the rouge of Agent Carter’s cheeks.

“Yeah,” he says aloud. “Yeah, I can see ‘em all these days.”

Bucky huffs a laugh and burrows his nose down further in his coat. “Yeah, lucky you, huh.”

Steve studies the sharp cut of his pale cheekbones, the purple-blue gaunt to the hollows of his eyes. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Yeah, something like that.”

Bucky breathes out a shaking breath. “ _And when they seek to destroy you,_ ” he murmurs, so quiet even Steve can barely hear him. Then, he looks back to Steve. “C’mon, you star-spangled ass. Get the guys before they prank Dugan and let his yelling give us away to every goddamn Nazi in the area.”

Steve huffs a laugh, but rises anyways.

* * *

 

 _Steve_ , the shape of the name that Bucky’s mouth forms, but the blood is rushing too loud in Steve’s ears to even truly hear the rattling, breaking question of a thrice dead man.

As the ash settles around his feet, Steve wonders if he ever, truly, knew what dying felt like.

* * *

 

Nakia’s eyes shine bright, wet with tears. “Captain Rogers,” she says at last. “You intend to fight them, don’t you?”

He nods.

She breathes in, an uneven, jagged thing. “The queen has taken over rule temporarily. We are… we are trying to put things right. Shuri is… to have lost her brother twice in such quick succession. And I-“ Her voice clogs, and she closes her eyes.

“I don’t know how,” Steve says slowly. “But we’ll get him. I’ll make sure of that.”

Nakia sniffs once, and meets his gaze. “When you go for him, I will be with you.”

“Yes,” Steve says.

Nakia assess him for a long moment, then nods.

Steve thinks of T’Challa, of the heavy weight of dignity and leadership that rested elegantly across his shoulders like a mantle, and of the way the Wakandan sunset paints the skies bloody-red over the quiet, empty plains.

The stars glimmer overhead, a promise, a vow, a betrayal.

* * *

 

A woman flies in, a star blazing across the chest of her suit, the spill of blonde hair tumbling down her back.

“Nick Fury called me in. I’m Captain Danvers,” she says, brisk, forward, and sharp to the point. “Some call me Captain Marvel, if they’re so inclined.”

She _flies_.

“Captain,” Steve says.

Captain Danver’s lips curl, just for a hot-flash second. “Captain,” she murmurs back, amused by something Steve can’t quite place, and that’s fine. That’s-

That’s fine.

“As I said, Fury called me in. Had I known, I would have been here sooner. I know some people who can help.”

Steve breathes.

 “Lead the way, Captain,” he says. “I’m out of my depth here, and we’re hurting for whatever help we can get.”

Captain Danvers smiles a smile like razors, and he can see the fight burning under her skin.

 _Rise_ , he thinks. _Rise._

* * *

 

Because-

Because _there is death, and then there is this_ , Steve decides later, sitting alone, watching the quiet drift of the river water hush past his feet.

There is death, and then there is the hollowed out, cracked emptiness that curls in the chest, aching, and aching, and aching like the tearing ring of a name off ashen lips, like the echoing promise of centuries of _something_ that never had a name, never had a purpose.

* * *

 

When he closes his eyes, he can sometimes hear Sam’s teasing voice, ringing against his ears, hear Wanda’s quiet, coy jokes and Vision’s answering laughter.

When he closes his eyes he sees Bucky reaching for him, again, and again, and again.

The snow covered mountains blur into the gunmetal and fire-burn of the helicarriers, and then into the cramped quarters of a Romanian apartment, and then-

* * *

 

Scott grins, just on the edge of reckless. “It’s quantum shit. Basically we’re gonna get really, _really_ small and-“

“When we reach quantum state, there is an opportunity to breach barriers that exist in a physical way in this world,” Hope cuts in. Her cheekbones are sharp, her tongue; sharper.

Steve thinks of Peggy, and his lips twitch towards a smile.

Hope clears her throat, and casts an assessing glance over Steve. “They aren’t gone. I believe the Soul Stone ruptured the fabric of the universe, tearing it into two different dimensions. One for the living, and one for the ghosts.”

“Ghosts,” Steve echoes.

Hope’s gaze cuts to him, piercing. “Yes. I imagine you understand the feeling. At the quantum level, rules that bind this world no longer apply, and we might be able to create a small tear. It will be a long, long process though.”

Steve’s hands tremble as fists at his sides, his nails biting crescents into his skin.

Captain Danvers shoots Steve a sidelong look.

“They’ll deal with freeing the trapped. You, and I, and anyone else who is able and free and willing, will be here, waiting for the Mad Titan to return.” Captain Danvers looks to him. “I trust you have a list?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I know a few people who’ll be willing to help us out.”

“Good,” she says, and then takes flight, leaving to go check up on someone or some thing or another.

* * *

 

-then on the quiet, empty plains of Wakanda, Bucky reaches for him, and breathes out his name like a curse, a prayer, a promise, and Steve-

* * *

 

_Rise, and rise again-_

* * *

 

Perhaps they are two souls, bound together until the end, until the end, until the end. But what fucking counts as the end? They’ve done this sickening split of birth-life-death-rebirth time after time again, fading out with the other as their last sight, their last breath, the taste of blood hot and bright, copper in their mouths. Steve died more times than he can count, gasping through rattling lungs on hardwood floors in Brooklyn. He died screaming as Erskine’s serum tore through his veins. He dies every time Bucky falls, again, and again, and again.

He dies, his broken body breaking through the waters of the Potomac, he dies as Bucky collapses, screaming on the ground in an underground HYDRA facility, he dies as the ice settles over Bucky’s skin in Wakanda, and he dies, and he dies, and he dies-

Bucky whispers his name, a promise, an oath, a prayer.

Bucky whispers his name, and Steve is caught somewhere in the middle of life and death. Bucky, strapped to an operating table, Bucky, reaching desperately as he falls to his death, Bucky, quietly in a Romanian apartment.

Bucky whispers his name, and there are lifetimes spent chasing the afterecho of each other.

* * *

 

_like the phoenix-_

* * *

 

-and Steve can’t fucking _move_ , he can never fucking move when he needs to more than _anything_ , because Bucky is right there, and Bucky is reaching for him and Bucky is-

* * *

 

_from-_

* * *

 

is-

* * *

 

_the-_

* * *

 

Bucky is-

* * *

 

_ashes._

* * *

 

Thanos stares down at them, his eyes narrowed, anger etched into the ugly valleys of his face.

“You think to change the unchangeable?” he asks, and the question is addressed at Steve, against all odds.

“I’m not the Captain you should be addressing,” Steve says, planting himself like a tree, digging his heels back into the Wakandan soil.

Thanos blinks at him, then looks up as Carol lets out a battlecry overhead, letting loose the crackling energy from her hands in a blinding, explosive blast.

Steve raises a fist in the air, and though they are nowhere near the army that first confronted Thanos, they have _Captain Mavel_ now.

Steve raises a fist in the air, and the ragtag group of worn-weary fighters behind him let out a cry, and like one, furious entity, they charge.

* * *

 

Between Captain Danver’s energy blasts, between the whir of Nakia’s ring blades and the static-sear of Thor’s lightning, Steve lands strike after strike on Thanos.

The electric crackle of lightning clears from the air and Steve slams the jagged edge of his shield into Thanos’ thigh. With a bellow of rage, Thanos kicks him square in the stomach, sending him skittering, crashing back into the ground. There is dirt in his teeth, and anger, fury, _rage_ singing a violent, familiar song beneath the taut lines of his skin, and he knows this fight, he knows this drill, he knows the cue and the set up and his lines by heart.

So, he staggers to his feet, shifts his weight back, and raises his fists in front of his face.

Behind them, Scott lets out a whoop, and there’s a crackle, a fissure and-

Stephen Strange materializes before their eyes, and in a crisp, smooth motion, deflects the blast Thanos sends hurtling towards them.

The lines around Thanos’ mouth tighten, and he turns his attention back towards Captain Marvel, as she rockets towards him, her hands blistering with energy. With a noise of like the cracking of the earth, the air around Thanos warps, energy swirling into a tight ball, until he unleashes it, right in Carol’s face.

Steve shouts something that’s maybe Captain Danver’s name, and even Thor looks worried when-

Carol emerges through the blast, glowing with the staggering might of its power, ethereal, terrifying, and unholy.

“Rise, and rise again,” Steve whispers, as the energy surrounding Carol whites out the sky.

 _Rise_ , he thinks, with blood in his mouth. _Rise_.

* * *

 

With Captain Marvel and Stephen Strange, the battle is over in the blink of an eye, or the snap of two fingers.

And after everything, it’s so viscerally anti-climactic.

Steve stands alone, his hands empty, as Captain Danvers and Steven Strange bicker back and forth about semantics and details, Hope Van Dyne interjecting her opinion here and there.

“The Soul Stone was responsible for their deaths, yes?” Shuri’s young voice interjects suddenly. She stands, her chin held high besides Nakia, and though there is grief in her eyes, there is a calm; a fierce determination that steels her spine. “Is there anything that says that only Thanos can use the Soul Stone?”

Stephen Strange blinks, and Captain Danvers’ lips curl up in a smile.

“No, I don’t think there is,” Carol says, her cheeks dimpling in a crooked grin, before she strides towards Thanos’ corpse. “Doctor Strange? I think you talk too much.”

* * *

 

_until the lambs-_

* * *

 

The ghosts appear slowly, one by terrible one. Spiderman stumbles when he first reappears, and beside Steve, Tony makes a terrible, breaking noise.

Thor’s new friends materialize next, and Thor manages a shaky grin as the tree croaks out a startled _I am Groot?_

Sam staggers into existence immediately after a series of curses dying on his lips as he catches Steve’s wrecked expression. He breathes out a shaky sigh, and forces his face into something like a smile. “Heya, Steve. You look like shit.”

Steve manages a laugh. “Could say the same for you, Wilson.”

Sam grins. “I’ve seen better days, that’s for sure.”

“Nah, I reckon you look handsome as ever.”

Natasha shifts besides Steve, new life crossing her face. “Hey,” she says, all raspy and warm and familiar.

“Hey yourself,” Sam says back, and for the first time in days months _years_ , Steve cracks a smile.

* * *

 

_have become-_

* * *

 

Bucky reaches for him. There is stress in his crow’s feet and fear in the alpine blue of his eyes, and Steve is drowning under the waters of the Potomac all over again.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, and his voice is hoarse, broken; rust-scraped from screaming and raging and fighting and fighting and fighting-

But he’s there, and he’s _real_ , and he smells like ash and the Wakandan breeze, like gunmetal and the sticky sweat of Coney Island in the hot-flash-swelter of the New York summer.

“Bucky,” Steve says. Or, tries to at least. His voice comes out cracked and ugly, flayed raw in a way that only love can really do, and serum or no, the lines of his fingers shake and shake and shake. “Bucky,” he says, begging.

“Steve,” Bucky says, something to wrung-weary to be amusement curling along the edges of his mouth.

Bucky claps him on the shoulder, and his hand is heavy, solid. A thick, sturdy weight of promise. Steve forces himself to smile.

“What took you so long?” Steve asks.

Bucky glances up, away, around, his hand never leaving Steve’s shoulder, before he looks back, and grins. It’s weak, tired, but real enough, and Steve will take that, take anything that Bucky is willing to offer. “Had some things to do. Admire the view, smell the roses. Stuff like that.”

Steve laughs, scraping out like the jagged edges of glass tearing from his chest. “Worth it?”

Bucky shrugs a shoulder, and his eyes go a little soft, the harsh lines of Bucky’s brow gentling for a moment. “Sure it was. Gotta say though, view back home’s better.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, and maybe his voice breaks, just so.

Bucky looks at him. _Really_ looks at him. “Yeah,” he says, steady as a promise, definite as a vow. “Yeah, Stevie.”

* * *

 

The flight back to New York is hushed, the quiet murmur of the news echoing from the back of the quinjet.

Bucky’s knee bumps into Steve’s then stays, a solid, steady line of warmth between them.

* * *

 

“Read me something, Steve,” Bucky murmurs into the quiet space between their faces. Here, alone on a rooftop in Brooklyn, the city lights shine down on them like stars, the sticky, familiar heat of the summer smog a quiet comfort.

Steve hesitates, then carefully reaches over, fitting his palm against Bucky’s cheek in a way that’s easy, so easy.

“ _Go out into this world_ ,” Steve whispers, “ _bold and unafraid._ ”

Bucky watches him with tired, fond eyes before he reaches out, curling the fingers of his left hand in the fabric of Steve’s shirt, something like a smile tugging at his lips.

“ _And when the bigots cast stones against you,_ ” Bucky whispers back, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “ _Take every stone they cast, and use them-_ “

Steve can’t help but smile, a small, stupid thing. Because Bucky is-

“ _And when they seek to oppress you and destroy you-“_

 _“Rise_ ,” Bucky breathes out, close enough that Steve can feel his breath ghosting over his lips, see the yearning, the ache in his eyes.

“Buck-“

“ _Rise, and rise again,_ ” Bucky forges on _. “Like the phoenix from the ashes_ -“

Steve tastes ash and the bitter memory of the way his name choked, tore from Bucky’s lips at the end of all things.

Bucky is quiet, watching Steve almost desperately, his eyes roving over Steve’s face. Steve brushes back a stray lock of Bucky’s hair, tucking it gently behind his ear. “ _Rise, and rise again,_ ” he whispers back, brushing his thumb against Bucky’s lips. “ _Until the lambs,_ ”

Bucky moves, pressing his lips to Steve’s in a motion that’s as natural and easy as if they’d been doing this in every one of their lives. Steve’s breathing hitches, but he presses back desperately, licking into Bucky’s mouth, the heat of his hands a brand against Bucky’s skin.

Bucky pulls back at last, grinning in a private, crooked sort of way. “Were you ever gonna get the courage to do that or were you just gonna stand around looking sad?”

Steve sputters and shoves at Bucky’s shoulder. “Fuck off, asshole.”

Bucky cackles, ugly and free, and after a second, Steve joins in, laughing, really laughing for the first time in _lifetimes_.

* * *

 

_Rise, and rise again,_

_Until the lambs have become lions._


End file.
